instead of encouraging it in the hope of extracting diplomatic concessions from Israel.
Regardless of what Arafat did or did not do in the early days of the intifada, it quickly
became clear that he had lost much of his authority among Palestinians at large, espe-
cially among the more radical elements within his own Fatah party and among Hamas
and Islamic Jihad. The Palestinian Authority under Arafat had proven to be a weak,
unpopular government, riddled with corruption and unable to deliver basic services in
the sections of the Gaza Strip and West Bank it controlled.
In an attempt to halt the violence and get peace talks back on track, senior U.S.
officials met with Barak and Arafat in Paris on October 4. This meeting resulted in
some progress on key issues but produced no written agreements. On October 12,
Palestinians killed two Israeli reserve soldiers at a police station in the West Bank city
of Ramallah, sending the violence spiraling further out of control. The Israeli military
proceeded to destroy Palestinian Authority offices near Arafat’s headquarters in Gaza
City, close the new airport in Gaza, and blockade West Bank cities.
In this super-charged atmosphere, Egypt and the United States made yet another
attempt at reaching an agreement to stop the violence. On October 16–17, Clinton
and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak hosted a summit at Sharm el-Sheikh attended
by Arafat and Barak, along with UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, Jordan’s King
Abdallah II, and Javier Solana, the chief diplomat for the European Union. The sum-
mit produced an agreement for a cease-fire, to be backed by confidence-building steps
by the Israelis and Palestinians. One element included a U.S.-led fact-finding mission
to examine the causes of the intifada. Arafat issued a statement calling for an end to
the violence, but neither he nor the Israelis followed through on the other steps they
had promised to take to calm the situation.
Clinton held separate meetings at the White House with Arafat (on November 9)
and with Barak (on November 12), hoping once again to craft the broad outlines of
a potential final agreement. Arafat appeared willing to go along with proposals Clin-
ton suggested. In another positive sign, there was a noticeable reduction in violence
during most of November. Even more promising was a secret meeting between Ross,
the U.S. negotiator, and Arafat in Rabat, Morocco, in November during which Arafat
appeared to accept what Ross outlined as a bottom-line Israeli offer.
Another set of negotiations between senior Israeli and Palestinian diplomats (with-
out Arafat and Barak) took place at Bolling Air Force Base outside Washington start-
ing on December 19. When those talks bogged down on the same issues as before,
and both sides asked for help, U.S. officials developed a final proposal, which Clinton
presented to the negotiators on December 23. These ideas, which became known as
the Clinton parameters, dealt with the fundamental issues that had separated the par-
ties. Clinton insisted that the parameters were not his ideas, but instead represented
his understanding of the bottom-line positions of each side.
On territory, Clinton called for a settlement in which Israel turned 94 to 96 per-
cent of the West Bank over to the Palestinians, with the two sides swapping the equiv-
alent of another 1 to 3 percent in the Gaza Strip area. On the issue of Jerusalem, Clin-
ton proposed that “what is Arab in the city should be Palestinian and what is Jewish
should be Israeli.” With this concept, Clinton offered two alternatives for the sides to
share forms of sovereignty over the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount. On the question
of Palestinian refugees, Clinton said the Palestinians needed to understand that Israel
would not allow for the unlimited right of refugees to return to Israeli territory, but
ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS 279